


terra incognita

by orphan_account



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Detailed content warnings inside, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:50:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9956204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There’s a growl, there’s a bang, there’s the gentle splashing of water, there’s the sound of his own breath, there’s something just out of range that’s whispering something.But he’s not thinking about that.-----Basically the events from Jocelyn's death to the aftermath of Alec's suicide attempt, but Alec has a psychotic episode throughout.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Canon compliant, sort of … _mostly _, only a few details changed so certain things make sense because the timeline of this show is confusing as fuck.__
> 
> Content warnings: discussions of self-harm (re: 2.05, and other parts are of a similar level of intensity, also discussion of intent/wish to harm self), discussions of suicide (re: 2.08, but references to and discussions of suicidal ideation of varying intensity before), discussions of psychotic experiences (re: 2.08 again but also discussion and descriptions of hallucinations before this), internalised ableism and unintended bad handling of psychotic/anxiety episodes by other characters (unresolved within the story, but nothing Terrible and no intentional or detrimental mistreatment), descriptions of panic attacks, mentions of vomit (not graphic), canon typical violence.  
> 

**_One._ **

It takes a while for anything to register at all.

He’s on the ground - he can feel his back pressed against the wall. He tries to move his legs but only manages to raise his left one slightly before giving up. They feel like they’re made of lead, they might be, he can’t be quite sure. His head falls back against the wood paneling and the quiet thud jolts him awake a little more. It stings a bit, but he’s sure he has a head now - which is good.

It takes a while for things to register - but then suddenly, all too quickly, everything is far too sensitive. The fingers of his right hand are hot and they hurt like he’s just landed a punch on a brick wall. And his head is in _agony_. He can hear the blood rushing around his ears. The sticky sensation he feels as he brings up his hands to cover them in an attempt to block out the hissing sound that seems to be coming from all around him is the first time he notices the blood.

He drops his hand instantly to the ground and can’t do anything but stare at it. The first thing he thinks is that maybe the pain in his head and the blood on his hand are connected - the thought is slow, lazy connections forming in his mind. He tries to raise his left hand to his head to check for any sort of injury but it won’t move, no matter how hard he tries to concentrate. He slams his head against the wall again as hard as he can - which in his current state, is not as hard as he had hoped - trying to desperately send another shock wave of pain through his nerves so maybe he can move again. It doesn’t work, only succeeding in making the pounding in his ears louder and the pitchy hiss turn into what sounds like a low, guttoral growl.

All efforts at moving abandoned, he tries to piece some more things together. He can remember something from training, something about confusion or competition or - something, the word isn’t important. He knows that when Jace gets knocked out that Hodge would make him answer stupid questions and Jace always got mad. Jace is - he’s not quite sure of that either, he knows his name but he can’t quite remember what he looks like - but he’s always running around and making Alec’s head hurt.

 _What’s his name?_ Alec. He knows that one, he’s almost certain of it. Alexander, but everyone calls him Alec, except someone doesn’t - sometimes. But he’s not sure who. Or _why_.

 _Where is he?_ The institute. His home, his rooms not here - it’s a few levels down, he thinks. This is where he grew up. He knows that, he’s sure of it. There are memories of … people, his sister. His sister is called Isabelle. And Jace - Jace is his brother, he remembers that now. He has another brother too, but he doesn't live here. Neither do his parents, not now. Not in a long time. He can't remember why.

 _Who is he?_ He’s a Shadowhunter. He kills demons, he thinks, he’s not sure right now. He can’t remember having blood on his hands before. Not like this. He can't remeber not remembering. 

 _What was he doing?_ He was walking … somewhere. Someone was hurt - he can’t remember who - maybe it was him. He’s hurt now, must be, cause there’s blood on his hand and his head hurts. He was walking and then he woke up on the floor with that sound all around him and blood on his hand. He must have got hurt somehow, he must have been looking for help when something happened.

It’s then that he notices the footprint. He can’t quite make sense of why this _doesn’t_ make sense, but something is bugging him. The blood on his hand is only on _one_ hand, and it’s covering every inch of skin up to his wrist like he’s submerged it in a vat of blood, but that seems unlikely, there must be something to explain it all rationally.

Something doesn’t quite make sense. His head hurts, there’s a sting in the back from the wall but the rest is _inside_.

There’s something wrong about this but he can’t think. All his thoughts keep going missing like they're being pulled out his head. There’s something _wrong,_ but there's not enough room to think properly. 

Then there’s a break in the sound, it takes him a second to realise that it’s someone talking. Someone’s saying his name. He looks up and he can feel his hands and feel his legs and he can feel his heart beating so fast that he feels like he’s going to throw up. He can smell the blood and he can feel it under his fingernails, he can feel something rising in his stomach. He looks up and sees Clary. Clary … _something_ , he can’t quite remember that either right now. But she’s looking at him and she’s got that look of concern mixed with shock that she does so well - Alec can remember missions they’ve been on, he can remember that look and all the things that made her react like that. None of them were good - but he can remember. 

‘Alec?’ She asks, again, but Alec can hear her this time. He looks at his hands, then back up at her.

‘What did I do?’ He asks, staring back down at his blood soaked hand. Clary’s eyes shift from him to the footprint and then she moves into the door frame. Alec hadn’t realised the door was open, he’d barely realised he was next to a door at all. He looks at the footprint too and his body is moving without him asking it.

Clary’s on the floor when he peers past the door frame. He doesn’t step any further when he notices what she’s looking at.

There’s a woman on the floor with a hole in her chest the size of a fist. For the first time in what feels like hours, Alec’s brain isn't as slow as he wished it would be. He looks at the woman, Jocelyn  … _something_ \- Clary’s mother. Then he looks down at his hand, the one that had blood under the fingernails from being driven so forcefully into someone’s chest that it broke through her ribs. He understands that now, but he wishes he didn’t.

He stops doing any thinking at all after that.

People come in and barge past him, he’s not sure how long he’s standing there. Clary’s moved now, she’s over by her mother - her mother’s _body._  There’s a lot of talking but Alec can’t understand any of it, he barely notices a hand in his that leads him away from the room.

The hand belongs to Izzy he realises, when they’re halfway down another flight of stairs and he catches on to the fact someone’s talking to him. He’s not sure what she’s saying, she’s talking so quietly and so calmly that the constant growl in his ears is drowning her out. It takes him longer to realise that he’s walking, and that Izzy is holding onto his bloodied hand. All he wants to do is yank it away from her but as much as he tries he can’t get it to move.

The growl gets softer, he’s thankful for that at first until he can suddenly hear the sticky sound his feet are making every time he takes a step. It’s the first time he consciously links the bloody footprint to his own shoes and it makes the nauseous feeling in his stomach return. He wants to take them off but he can't stop walking and he can’t ask Izzy to stop him from walking cause his voice is missing.

“You’re going to be okay, Alec. Once we get you cleaned up we’ll look at the tapes, okay? Then we’ll know what happened.” Izzy says, and Alec can hear her now. He can’t tell if he’s thankful or not for it, but she’s talking louder than his shoes, and that’s good, and he can focus on her words now, almost. “It wasn’t you fault, okay? It’s this demon, the one that got to Raj, it’s all going to be fine.”

 _‘Is Jocelyn okay?’_ He thinks, or maybe he even manages to say it, he’s not quite sure. Izzy grips his hand tighter and he feels so stupid. There’s a hole in her chest and blood up to Alec’s wrist, he doesn’t need to wait for a second opinion to know she’s dead. 

It seems cheap to wish it was his body lying on the ground with his heart ripped out rather than Jocelyn’s, but she never had to see the look on Clary’s face and Alec can’t help but be envious. Maybe, he thinks, if he’s lucky enough he’ll never have to see Clary’s face ever again. If he’s lucky the nagging feeling of wanting to keel over and faint might just catch up with him and he won’t wake up.

Izzy doesn’t talk again until they reach Alec’s room. “We’re going to get you cleaned up, yeah? Then we can go find out what happened and stop this thing. Like we always do.” She says, and Alec’s sure she’s talking to keep herself from crying, or screaming, he’s not sure which. He wishes she’d slow down. “Sit on the bed. We’ll deal with your shoes, then we can deal with -“ She stops abruptly and stares at Alec’s hand. He swallows hard and doesn’t move for a second, and then he starts blinking too quickly. He can remember that Izzy doesn’t like it when he stares blankly at her, he tries his best to put any sort of expression on his face but nothing works.

She leans down and starts untying his boots. Her hand is already smeared with blood from where she was holding onto Alec’s so she doesn’t try to avoid the soles of his shoes as she drags them off.

“We can clean these up.” She starts to say, and Alec’s sure she could. He doesn’t want to think about how his little sister knows more about getting blood stains out of clothing than anyone her age should. Maybe once he would have been proud of her for that, he can’t bring himself to be now though.

“I don’t -“ He says, and the words come out painfully slow, sitting on his tongue like a dead weight. “Throw them out.”

Izzy nods and places them on the floor beside her without any argument. He can’t stand the sight of them, he can’t get the sound of the blood sticking to the floor out of his head. All he wants is to tell her to get rid of them now, get them out of his room and out of his home as quickly as she possibly can but nothing comes out when he opens his mouth.

He wishes he could cut of his hand too and throw that out as well. It’s sitting limply in his lap and he can see Izzy’s eyes dart glances at it every so often, as if she’s unable to look at it for any longer than a second. Alec can’t stop, his eyes drawn to it. It’s as if the lights have gotten so much brighter and he’s straining against them as they draw all the focus in the room onto his hand. He can see every detail, how the blood is thick and sunken into the lines on his palms, how far embedded it is into his fingernails. The pain in his head is lessening and he can’t stop himself wishing it would stay, at least it gives him something to concentrate on that isn’t the image of Jocelyn with a hole in her chest that he had put there.

“We’ve got to get you cleaned up, okay?” Izzy says softly, as if she’s scared of startling him. “I’ll help you with your hands but then you can take a shower. Is that okay?” She reaches for his hand again but he’s more conscious now and holds out his clean hand for her instead. She smiles slightly and takes it, leading him to the bathroom.

It should be easy, he thinks, he’s done this everyday of his life, several times a day in fact, but he can’t quite remember how to wash his hands right now. Izzy shoots him a look of concern before catching herself and putting on that soft smile again. Turning on the tap she runs her own hand under it for a moment before plugging the sink and letting it fill up. Once it has she turns the tap off with one hand and guides Alec’s hands to the water with the other. The water is warm, it reminds him of earlier when the blood on his hands was still hot between his fingers and he wants to stop this. Izzy is rubbing his hand between her own, stopping for a moment to get some soap. The water and blood are mixing together in pools and soon the whole basin is a slightly diluted colour of red. Alec almost laughs at the strange look of the reddish bubbles the soap is creating on the surface.

Izzy looks around the bathroom for a second, “Typical guy.” She says, “No nail brush.” And she gives Alec the first genuine smile of the evening.

His hands are clean and Izzy empties the basin, scrubbing around the sides where the blood dried up a little. “You okay to take a shower?” She says, looking up at Alec who’s standing across the room now leaning against the towel rack. He nods in reply. “I’ll go get you some clean clothes, yeah? Then we can throw these ones out, if you want to.” He nods again and she moves past him to open the door but he grabs her arm to stop her.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he says “Thank you,” and hopes that’s enough. She smiles again and puts her hand on his shoulder before turning back and out the door.

The only blood left on him was a few spatters over his shirt and dried up on the side of his trousers where he’d been resting his hand. His hand was clean now, not that it helped kill the confusion in his mind. He felt like everything was going too slow and too fast all at once, his hand moved like it weighed 50 pounds and his mind was going so quick he couldn’t keep up with any thought that actually entered it.

The nausea returns and the fluorescent lights of the bathroom were sinking into his head and he feels like he’s being electrocuted, like he's chewing up all the light in the room in painful shards, he feels like something is wrapping itself tightly around his lungs and his throat. And -

He can’t breathe. He can’t _think_. He’s gasping, choking on the air around him, trying as hard as he can to get any of it down into his lungs but all attempts are failing. He hears footsteps, he hears that growl again, he hears something behind him whispering but he can’t make out what. The footsteps are Izzy’s, she clatters into the bathroom and sees him, the look of terror on her face makes Alec’s eyes screw up and he wishes he could speak just to tell her to stop looking at him like that.

But he can’t speak, he can’t _breathe_ . Izzy puts her hand on his shoulder but he bats it away just as quick. And suddenly it feels like there are a hundred hands on him, _a million_ , all pushing down on his lungs and forcing every short breath he manages to pull in back out of him. There’s not enough air in the room, he thinks, something is stealing the air.

Whispering behind him and growling all around him and the sound of his breath getting caught in his throat and - something else.

He chokes, feeling a little vomit come up his throat as he sputters and tries to focus on something that’s happening, but his brain can't keep up.

He thinks about the demon, he thinks about it sitting in his lungs and choking him to death. Then he thinks about the number four, and the number five, and the number six, and then - Izzy is counting, he realises.

“Seven, eight, nine, ten. And out - one, two, three, four -“ She’s saying, and taking in big breaths and letting them out as she moves her hands up and down slowly. She’s back to ten, then back to one, back up to ten. Breathing in and out slowly.

Alec catches on and tries copying. He can’t, not instantly. The air won’t stay in his damn lungs long enough.

“It’s okay,” Izzy says, slowly, “just focus on the numbers. Breathe as deep as you can, okay?” So he does.

It takes a while, he’s not sure how long, but his breathing evens out, his pulse corrects itself and he’s left drenched in sweat and realisation on the floor in his bathroom.

He _killed_ someone _._

Not only that, but he’s killed someone’s mother. He killed someone _good_. Reached inside her chest with his hand and killed her.

“Can you move?” Izzy asks, warily. Alec’s not sure. He’s not sure he wants to move. He’d quite like to just curl up on the bathroom floor and die, but he doesn't think Izzy would allow that. Moving his hand shakily, his left one, and reaches out. Izzy takes it in hers and pulls him up with her. “You can shower later. How about we just start with the clothes?”

He shakes his head. “No, we have to find what did this.” He mumbles, and Izzy nods in return. He pulls on a clean pair of boots and Izzy leads him out of his room silently. He’s not sure what she’s thinking, but he’s sure it can’t be good.

 

\--

Alec’s brain won’t stop.

Recently, it had turned out that plenty of monsters looked just like him. So much so that he didn’t know if he could keep calling them monsters. It had been so simple when they were younger, everything monstrous had always been so clear. It was easy to determine who was on their side and who was not, these days everything blurred together.

These days the monsters looked just like him. Now, the monsters _were_ him.

Clary is walking forcefully towards them before Alec can even recognise where he is. Everyone in the control room is not looking at him so purposefully that he feels sick again, but even he can’t bring himself to look at Clary as she walks up to him.

She looks like she’s going to attack him, and he can’t help but be disappointed when all she does is say “We have to find what did this,” and walks off again.

Alec wants to offer himself up. He wants to be held accountable. He wants her to hit him, he wants her to _kill - him_ like he did her mother, reach inside his chest and pull his insides out into the air. She doesn’t. She walks over to the monitors and he follows as Izzy slips away to the other side of the room. She doesn't want to see it, neither does Alec. He can’t remember what he did, although he knows what happened, he can’t remember _doing_ it. He almost wishes he did.

Clary taps the screen a few times and pulls up the camera feed, rewinding it an hour or so. Alec feels like it’s been days since it happened, but Clary only has to move the video back 53 minutes to see Alec entering the room and throwing Jocelyn against the wall.

“Oh my God.” He says, and Clary doesn’t move. Clary doesn’t even _flinch_ when Alec’s hand reaches into her mother’s chest. She doesn’t say a word.

All Alec wants is for her to scream, get mad, _punch him in the fucking face_ . Anything. Alec looks up to the camera on the video, his eyes are black but it’s him. Alec looks at it, looks at _himself_ on the tape - holding himself unnaturally tall and rigid, his eyes black and blood dripping from his hand, and it’s _him_. He rubs his left hand, remembers what the blood felt like when it was there, doesn’t dare look down in case he sees his hand still coated in it.

“Clary, I -“ He begins, but Clary throws up her hand to stop him. He’s almost glad, he’s not sure what he was even going to say. He’s not sure there’s anything he can say.

Clary stares ahead, doesn’t throw him a single glance, and says “I have a demon to kill.” Alec’s never believed anything Clary has said more than he believes this.

She’s moving now, and Alec’s following unconsciously. He’s never felt so comfortable being led around than he does now. His feet don’t feel real, he keeps looking down to make sure he’s still all there. He feels like he’s made out of gaps.

Clary walks and her feet thud against the ground and Alec can hear that sticky sound of half dried blood on the soles of his shoes, but he doesn’t think about that, not about the sound or the fact that he had changed his shoes, he just follows Clary.

“Please, let me do this.” He says, walking quicker to fall in step with her. She’s moving so fast and so determined, Alec doesn’t think he’s had to quicken his pace to catch up with anyone since he was a child, but Clary’s moving like a storm. “You don’t have to put yourself in danger.” He tells her, and tries his best to make sure to hide the desperation in his voice, “Not now.”

He turns to see Izzy walking towards them, “Izzy we need your help.” He almost shouts across at her, “Jocelyn’s -“ He doesn’t even have time to process the fact that Izzy _knows_ what happened before she’s cocking her head and not stopping.

“Dead, because of you.” She replies, and it’s low and unnatural and sounds like the growl that has been following Alec around since this all started.

Izzy swipes at him but he manages to dodge.

“It’s inside her.” Clary says, and Alec’s already drawing his bow.

“It’s still Izzy.” He says, almost warning her, “Careful where you aim.”

Everything goes so quick that Alec can’t help but get caught up. He can’t shoot, it’s his _sister_. His sister who was just in his room helping him wash blood off his hands. He can’t shoot. He can’t save her.

She lunges for Clary and knocks her across the room, then she’s turning back on Alec and knocking his bow out of his hands before he can even catch on to what’s happening. He grabs her, tries his best to hold her harder than he wants to.

“Izzy, please stop! Izzy!” It doesn’t work, she still struggles against him and sends him flying to the ground.

And then she’s crouching on top of him unnaturally animalistic, and she’s saying “Always the favourite child.” She saying, “I’m done living in your shadow.” And Alec’s trying, but he can’t think, he manages “Izzy, if you’re in there, please listen to me.” But it’s so weak. He can’t help her. He can’t help anyone.

All he can do is lie there in shock as Clary stabs his sister between the shoulder blades and then kills the demon.

A lifetime of training and all he can do is huddle his sister close and pretend that he can’t see the blood on his hands.

He doesn’t say a word to Jace when he kneels beside them. Alec doesn’t ask about the blood on Jace’s shirt, and Jace doesn’t ask about anything - just helps Izzy up and into Alec’s arms and let’s them leave. Izzy’s alive, the demon is dead and Jace is back, and that’s all Alec wants to think about as he carries his sister through the hallways leading to her room.

Blank faced, he props Izzy up against her pillows. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He says, reaching out to push her hair away from her face. “I’m just going to get bandages, okay?” He tries his best to imitate her tone from earlier and hopes it works. She smiles and tells him she’ll be fine. Alec believes her, she’s always been stronger than him.

The hallways of the institute are empty. He can hear the sound of people working in the direction of the control room, but no one’s charging about the hallways as usual. He’s glad for it, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. His hands feel heavy, and he still can’t stand to look down at them properly as he’s sure all he will see is bright flashes of red. The faint sound of sticky shoes on wood still follows him, as often as he stops to check that he did, in fact, change his shoes, it still persists. He ignores it, for now, there are more important things to concentrate on than himself.

After picking up a few supplies from the medical stocks, he’s soon back in Izzy’s room. She's still sitting up against her headboard, her face brightening as she sees him appear in her doorway.

“How’re you feeling?” He asks, for want of anything better to say and feeling uncomfortable with the silence.

“Well, my shoulder hurts like a bitch, but I’m sure I’ll live.” She laughs, just slightly. Alec moves over to her and motions for her to move forward. He undoes the zip on her top and pushes the strap away from her shoulder, shuddering at the sound the bloodied fabric makes as it peels away from her skin. “Shame.” She says, “This was new.” And Alec would laugh if he could.

He cleans up her shoulder and patches it up as best he can. Some healing has been done already by the rune so it’s an easy enough job. He returns her earlier offer and goes to her drawers to fetch her something comfortable to wear.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” She asks, probably more solemnly than she had meant to, Alec thinks.

“I’m fine.” He says, and turns back to look at her properly. She looks smaller than she has in years, her legs pulled up to her chest. “You throw a mean punch though. Nothing I won’t sleep off, but you definitely hold back in training, don’t you.”

She laughs, and Alec just wants to go over and hug her. Lie down in bed and just sleep like they used to as kids. He doesn't, _he can't_. Not now, after what he’d done.

He leaves her clothes folded neatly on the end of her bed and says goodnight. She looks at him as if she’s about to ask him something, but doesn’t and just lets him leave.

**_Two._ **

The lights in his room are so bright that Alec thinks he might start crying if he doesn’t strain his eyes and focus on the dark grey of his bedsheets instead. He can’t turn them off, he’s not sure what is waiting for him in the dark but he sure as hell isn't ready to find out.

He’s staring at his bedsheets and he’s _not thinking_. He’s not thinking about a lot of things. He’s not thinking about Jocelyn and the hole in her chest and the look on her face. He’s not thinking about Clary. He’s not thinking about the blood on his hand, and he’s definitely not thinking about the banging sound he can hear coming from every direction. He’s not thinking about Izzy or the demon or how his insides feel dirty. He’s definitely not thinking about how he wants to rip open his chest and clean out his lungs and his heart and his stomach and -

He’s not asking himself why he’s still alive.

He’s _not_ thinking, he’s looking at his bedsheets. His mouth turns up into a smile and he’s not sure why. A lot of things are happening that Alec can’t explain, and he’s too tired now to even try anymore. He focuses on the smile and the bedsheets and not the _bang bang bang_ of whatever it is that’s coming to get him getting closer and _closer_ , not the low growl he can’t stop hearing, not the beeping of his phone on his bedside table lighting up for the 100th time.

Instead he thinks about how Izzy had always tried to get him to choose more exciting bedsheets, Izzy ( _who earlier had a blade between her shoulder, who had been possessed by a demon that Alec let in, that Alec couldn’t stop as he lay helpless on the ground - but he’s not thinking about that_ ) had always had a fascination with colour that Alec didn’t understand. She was a whirlwind of reds and purples that made everyone stop and take notice. Alec couldn't think of anything worse than people noticing him. He even resented being tall, especially when he was younger, it always made him stand out.

Boring, grey bedsheets for a boring, grey guy, Alec thinks. It’s well suited. Maybe recently he’s been a little more adventurous in life, but deep down he still wants to hide under his grey bedsheets and wear il- fitting black clothes and shrink himself down to as small as he can get. He still wishes no one would notice him, but he’s doing a shit job of it - first the wedding and now -

_He’s not thinking about it._

His legs uncross themselves without him asking and he’s on the floor now. He was getting sleepy, but he’s not going to sleep - he’ll never sleep again if he can manage it. Even blinking is terrifying, the dark is so _loud_ . He’s kneeling now - the sharp, uncomfortable pain of his knees jutting against the hardwood floors is enough to focus his mind on the task of keeping his eyes open as long as possible. He’s not thinking about it. _He’s not thinking about it._

He’s not -

Everyone will know by now. He doesn’t think he can look at Jace anymore. Maybe Jace will hit him. Maybe he’ll try and kill him. Alec doesn’t stop smiling, and he just can’t figure out why.

 _Magnus_ , he thinks suddenly. That’s probably who all the messages are from. He wants to check his phone, but he’s just not sure he’ll have anything to say. It’s new, being a killer. It’s different. Demons and bad guys are one thing, when he kills them people are happy. People tell him he’s brave and strong and that they are proud of him. No one’s proud of him now. He doesn’t know what he would say to Magnus, so he doesn’t think about it. Enough people hate him right now, but if he doesn't check his phone then he can at least pretend, for a while, that Magnus doesn’t.

The deep oak grain on the wooden floors seems to swirl around the more Alec stares at it. His hands are shaking by his sides but he continues to look, there’s nothing else he can do but stare at the floor and keep his eyes open. Something is banging and clattering and growling all around him, but Alec can’t look up. He’s terrified, but it’s good. Last time he forgot to be scared everywhere had suddenly become unsafe.

It takes him a good thirty seconds to notice the blood pooling out from under the bathroom door. His hands aren’t shaking now, his eyes don’t hurt anymore. The lights seem dim and the sound all around him lowers to a tolerable level. Everything turns static and low.

It’s thick and dark and creeping slowly towards him. He can’t do anything but stare for a while, maybe a minute, maybe an _hour_ , he’s not sure anymore. But slowly he starts to crawl towards it.

He lets himself think for a moment, just a second, about Jocelyn and the pool of blood that surrounded her body. He thinks of her chest splayed open, how it connected with the blood on his fist. He thinks about how warm it had been on his hands. He thinks -

He’s reaching out his hand and touching it before his mind can catch up and stop him. It’s not warm, it’s not even wet. It’s just red. The red travels up his fingers, up his palm and up his wrist until his right hand is covered in blood again. Turning his hand over and over, staring blankly at the deep colour trickling unnaturaly slow down his arm, he feels the world around him splinter into a million tiny pieces. 

His brain feels heavy. He’s trying to get a hold of any thoughts going through it but it’s like trying to see through smoke. He should probably clean his hands. ( _He should probably call for help or scream and get his bow but -_ ) His feet move again without warning, he’s pushing the bathroom door open and can barely bring himself to be shocked when he finds nothing inside.

Trying to remember what Izzy had done earlier - he plugs the sink and fills it up. He forgets to use warm water, he can’t remember what else he’s supposed to do though so he plunges his hands in anyway. The shock is welcomed, he feels his spine straighten and his mind clear slightly.

The water doesn't turn red like earlier. He rubs his hands together hard but the blood doesn’t move. He stops looking at them - pressing his forehead against his reflection in the mirror above the sink and staring into his own eyes. He looks tired - and _he is_ \- but it’s something more. He continues to rub his hands together in the water. There’s something wrong, something just simply  _wrong,_ with the way he looks. He isn’t sure how to know what it is, he’s not sure about a lot of things currently.

Maybe he’s dead. He’s starting to hope that’s the case, but he’s not sure how he could tell if he was. He could feel his hands, he could feel the stick of his sweat against the glass on the mirror, he could feel his feet - but maybe dead people could do all that. He’s not sure. Maybe he’s in hell.

There’s a growl, there’s a bang, there’s the gentle splashing of water, there’s the sound of his own breath, there’s something just out of range that’s whispering something. _But he’s not thinking about that._

The water is clear when he looks down eventually. There’s no blood on his hand, no blood in the sink. When he looks at the floor just outside the doorframe, there’s no blood there either. He’s too relieved that he doesn't think about what that all means. He just wants to go back to sitting upright on his bed and not sleeping, back to not thinking.

It’s fine. His grey bedsheets are damp with sweat, but it’s fine. He’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t think.

He’s a Lightwood. He kills demons, except now he’s become one. But it’s fine, as long as he stops thinking about it. And it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s -

He might be in hell but it’s fine - he deserves it.

It’s not until he can hear his alarm beeping at him that he realises he’d passed out.

He thinks _: Get up. Pick out your clothes. Shower. Get dressed. Brush your teeth. Training._

And he hopes it will be that simple.

**_Three._ **

He shows up for training in the same shirt as yesterday, the same shirt he’s slept in. No one says a word about it, they also keep quiet when he hits harder than ever and barely dodges a single punch thrown his way.

He avoids Clary. She doesn’t seek him out either. He doesn’t know what she’s thinking about him, but if it’s even half as bad as what Alec is thinking about himself then he doesn’t know how he’s still alive.

He doesn’t want to be.

Izzy sets out his targets. She smiles at him for the longest time and says, “Practice calms you down.” And she says, “Remember when we were kids and mum and dad would visit, how I always knew where I’d find you after they left? I always loved collecting arrows, there’s something weirdly satisfying about pulling an arrow out a bullseye.” And Alec says nothing, and Izzy is the first to look away.

He couldn’t shoot straight. Izzy doesn’t notice cause Alec is still hitting the bullseye, but he’s off centre, just slightly - but it’s enough to make him want to snap his bow in half in his hands. He doesn’t, cause Izzy isn’t just looking at him - she’s _watching_ him. She’s waiting for him to crumble but he’s not going to let that happen again.

There’s a bang, there’s a growl, there’s a soft but menacing whisper just too quiet to make out. And there’s Izzy talking to fill a silence that Alec can’t hear. Childhood memories are her way of coping, they make Alec miserable but he hasn’t the heart to stop her. She needs this more than he does, he’s been enough of a bad brother already - he lets her talk.

He shoots a round, stops to let Izzy pluck the arrows out the target and return them, then starts again. He’s not sure how long they’re doing this for - but Izzy runs out of stories to tell that have happy endings.

“I love you.” She says, looking almost disappointed in herself. “Sorry, I just - It tears me apart to see you hurting so much.”

And Alec wants to scream. He wants to run as far as he can from here, from _her_.

He’d picked the bow as a child because the distance between himself and the target always made him feel safe. Jace preferred knives, if he had to use a weapon, Alec thinks he’d probably kill every demon by hand if he could. He’s not sure why Izzy chose her whip, she’d tell him she thought it was pretty and that’s a lie he’s willing to accept.

Izzy is a problem like that. She’s open and honest but then all of a sudden you reach a line you can’t cross. A secret she won’t tell.

That’s what it’s like now, Alec thinks, like she’s just let out one of her secrets.

“I don’t know -“ He starts, but finds himself unable to finish his thought before it’s gone from his head.

She takes his bow from his hands and places it on the table beside them before taking both Alec’s hands in her own. He wants to pull his right hand away from hers, it’s still too dirty and bloodstained - she shouldn't have to touch it. She shouldn't touch him, he’s full of something evil. He wants to warn her, tell her to stay back incase it infects her too. He can’t talk though. He can’t move.

“Nothing you do will ever make me not love you.” She says, and Alec can’t look away from her but he can’t meet her eyes either. “You’re my brother, you will always be my brother. There’s nothing you could do that would be so bad that I couldn’t forgive you for it. But this -“ She stops and pulls one hand away from Alec’s to reach up and push back his hair a little. She stroke the side of his face and he can’t stop staring like she’s going to disappear if he blinks. “This wasn’t your fault. You did _nothing_ wrong. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth. I know how you feel, but it wasn’t you. I feel terrible for hurting you - hell, I nearly killed you, Alec.”

“But you didn’t.” He almost shouts, and Izzy flinches in a way she’s been trained not to for years. Alec wants to be sick. He wants to hide somewhere no one can ever look at him again. He wants to hug Izzy, but he can’t. He wants to hug Jace, but he can’t. There’s too much bad inside him now, he can’t risk letting it get into them too. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness or resolution or any of this.

He wishes Izzy would pick up one of his arrows and drive it into his ear as hard as she could, even if only to stop him hearing that fucking growl for a second. He wishes she’d hit him, but she won’t. Instead, she looks at him like he’s someone who deserves pity and rubs her thumb over his and -

Alec turns and leaves. Izzy doesn’t follow, he can’t be sure if he’s relieved about that or not. The _bang bang bang_ and the growl and the whisper get louder and louder until he’s in his bedroom again, on his grey sheets again and staring at his light trying to make his eyes stop working.

Laying his palms flat against his thighs he tries to find anything to focus on that isn’t the sounds and isn’t the feeling like his heads full of water or the memory of hot, sticky blood all over his hands.

It’s his own fault. He knows he deserves this, it doesn't make it easier to deal with but it means he doesn’t have to fight it.

Somewhere in the institute, there’s a dead body with a hole in it’s chest that’s only a little larger than the size of Alec’s fist. He wishes it was him. He brings his hand up to trace down his chest and wonders how hard he had to push to break through her ribs - he wishes he still had the strength in him to repeat the action on himself now.

The world around him had no limits. There was no line between his own hand and someone else’s heart, before now he didn’t even think of that as a line that needed to be drawn. Now, he’s not too sure what to think. What can happen once could happen again and again _and again_ \- he can’t predict the future anymore. _The world has no limits._

It wasn’t too long ago he had marched back down the aisle at his own wedding to kiss Magnus in front of everyone, thinking that would be how the world ended. He’d been drawing up lists and working on his priorities and giving a little thanks that he had never accumulated more personal belonging than he could hurriedly throw into a bag and run with.

But then it didn’t happen. He kissed _Magnus fucking Bane,_ a _man_ , at his own wedding and the world kept going. His mother still spoke to him, albeit with more malice in her voice than he had ever heard, no one kicked him out or sent him to the Clave for judgement. The world carried on, and it was both lighter and heavier than it had ever been. But the limits were moved further, he could spread out wider than he ever had before.

For so long he had thought the limit was being gay, that nothing could be worse than that. But now he’s stuck his hand into his friend’s mother's chest and killed her and he still has a room and a family and Izzy still smiles at him like he’s someone worth smiling at.

When there was limits, Alec had known how to act. It had been horrible, but he’d at least been sure where he stood. When there was a line in the sand that he never dared cross, when there were risks never worth taking - he had known so surely who he was, even if it was a lie. It was a lie he’d told himself so often it felt comfortable and safe.

But now nothing made sense. And he feels like there’s a big hole in his own chest that he can't patch up no matter how much he tries.

His phone beeps and lights up, he decides to check it this time, he’s only putting off the inevitable. His eyes adjust badly to the dimmer light of his phone screen and he blinks rapidly a few times to try get rid of the blocks of colour floating in his vision.

It’s Magnus. He looks and sees he has 6 messages and a couple missed calls.

FROM: MAGNUS

_Izzy told me what happened. Call me._

FROM: MAGNUS

_Izzy says you’re safe. I know our head is probably a mess right now. Call me if you can_

 

The rest are similar. Alec doesn’t know how to feel. The concern touches him, he feels his heart do that awful fluttery nonsense it seems to always do when Magnus is involved. But he can’t help but feel disgusting. Magnus should run while he can, Alec can still feel blood on his fingertips and hear the stick of his shoes when he walks. Magnus should stay as far back as he can.

Alec doesn’t want to be selfish, but he can’t stop himself. He opens the latest text Magnus has sent and replies with a curt ‘ _I’m okay. I’m sorry for not answering, but I’m fine._ ’

He wants to type: _run._

He wants to type: _get away from me as quick as you can._

He wants to type: _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You deserve someone good._

But he doesn’t.

Choices have consequences, he was stupid to so naively think they wouldn’t. So what if they didn’t come the first time, or second, or third. He should have never stopped waiting for the coin to drop. It was proven detrimental to want things. He deserved this. He couldn’t stop the demon possessing Raj and hurting Lydia and possessing Izzy. He couldn’t stop himself killing Jocelyn.

He was stupid, naive and _selfish_ to think he was allowed any of this. And he hated himself for still wanting it.

His phone beeps again in his hands.

FROM: MAGNUS

_I’m glad you're okay. Call me if you need to. x_

Alec wants to throw his phone against the wall or grind it into tiny pieces in his hand. He’s done everything to deserve the hell that is the noises and the blood and the sick feeling in his stomach. He hasn't done anything to deserve kindness.

He puts his phone back on the bedside table and stares at his light again.

**_Four._ **

Alec can remember being a kid, about how summer would seemingly last forever. Endless weeks of running and hiding and laughing whenever the adults would leave them alone - because they were older then, Alec was eight and then nine and then ten and old enough to know what was best. He was a serious child, of course, but he was a child nonetheless, no matter how much his parents tried to force him not to be. Jace and Izzy would run rings around the institute and they’d hide in corners and under alters to jump out and scare him. Alec can remember how he always reached for the side he kept his bow on, no matter how often they’d done it. It was good though, he can remember laughing, despite himself, he can remember falling asleep in Izzy’s bed or Jace’s bed or his own, whichever one they had decided was big enough for all of them on that night.

But then they grew up, and time started moving faster and faster until he’s in his 20s and he’s scared all the time and he’s worried he won’t have enough time to right all his wrongs..

He didn’t have much of what others might consider a childhood, but he’d give up everything to be ten again and have summer last forever.

He’s shooting arrows into the sky like he did as a kid. But this time he’s not wearing gloves and this time he’s being so _careful_ with his aim and this time there’s no Izzy or Jace excitedly cheering him on. He’s a killer now, and it’s always possible what happened once will happen again. There’s blood trickling between his fingers and the sick feeling in his guts as he remembers the way Jocelyn’s blood felt on his hand is suppressed only by the fact that this time it’s his own, and he’s putting it there.

It’s control, if nothing else. The sharp pain the string of his bow inflicts every time he pulls it back is enough to make him dizzy with clarity for the first time in what feels like years. And the thing is, he’s happy, a little bit at least. The thing is, the pain feels better than anything has in days. The thing is, it’s working, and he can’t stop. _The thing is -_

“Alec.” He turns to see Jace standing there. Alec’s not sure how long he’s been there, or how long he’s been saying his name. It’s been like that ever since he came to his senses outside Jocelyn’s room. He’s not sure when things happen, it takes a while for them to sink in.

“Move.” He says, and Jace doesn’t even flinch, and Alec hates him for never letting his fear get in the way of doing what he thinks is best. Or, Alec would hate him, if it were possible.

Jace asks, “How long have you been up here?” And won’t move.

“I’m glamoured.” Alec replies, knowing it’s not an answer. “No one can see me. _Move_.”

Jace doesn't move. Jace is stubborn and _good_ and Alec wants to put an arrow between his temples as a lesson but he won’t, cause he can’t.

“You can’t beat yourself up.” Jace remarks softly. He’s doing the thing with his voice that Izzy’s been doing - it’s too soft and subtle to be Jace, it’s too wary. Alec _hates it._

“I’m not.” He says, but _he is_. He’s trying to at least, if he could conjure up the strength to drive his hand through his own chest he would have done it already. He’s weak. Weak and naive. He wishes Jace would just lunge at him now, grab an arrow from Alec’s quiver and stick it in Alec’s throat or throw him off the roof or, or, or -

“Who are you talking to? It’s me. I’m you parabatai.” And Alec wants to throw up, he doesn’t need to be reminded. “I know exactly what you’re going through. What happened with Jocelyn, that wasn’t you. That was the demon.”

Alec wants to let go of the string, he wants to prove to everyone he doesn’t deserve forgiveness. He wants to be monstrous, then people will stop treating him like he isn’t.

He can’t. “Get out of the way.” He says, and Jace throws up his hands in mock surrender.

“Hey. Same side, remember?” Alec let’s his bow go slack and drops his hands to his side. “Come on, man. Come back inside.” Jace says, and Alec wants to choke him, or choke himself - that’s the thing with parabatai, the lines get blurred.

“That’s the last place I want to be.” He’s sick of the looks, of people talking to him but not _talking_ to him, he’s sick of the sound of his shoes on the floor no matter how many times he changes them, no matter if he’s even wearing shoes at all. He’s sick of the whispers that get louder and the growl that won’t leave and the blood stains on his hands.

“Alec, Valentine has the soul sword. He slaughtered the Silent Brothers.” Alec can’t look at him. Alec can’t look at him and can’t put an arrow between his eyes and can’t go over and hold him as close as he wants to. “We need our best soldiers” Jace adds, and Alec wants to laugh.

“Stop pretending this never happened.” He says, louder than he means, but it hits where he wants it to. “I couldn't save you from Valentine. I couldn't save you from the City of Bones. I -“ There’s so many things he wants to say but it’s all just so heavy on his mind, he can’t seem to move it from his brain to his mouth. He tries, “She’s Clary's mother. Your mother.” And the look on Jace’s face makes him want to bring his bow back up.

But Jace is Jace, and he can’t see a monster when it’s staring him straight in the eye apparently. “Nobody blames you.”

Alec traces over the rune on the back of his hand and has already turned away from Jace. “They should.” He says quietly before he jumps, not turning back for even a second as he breaks out into a run.

\--

 

Alec’s running faster than he thinks he ever has before. His legs are burning and his feet are in agony every time they collide with the pavement but he keeps pushing. His arms hurt and his legs hurt and his throat is burning with every breath he pulls in, and it’s _good_. Everything is blurring around him into a swarm of colour and sound. He can’t hear the growl or the bang or the whispers, there’s no sticky sound from his feet. Or, if there is, the city is drowning it out. He never wants to stop running.

He’s not sure where his feet are taking him, he doesn’t care right now. The further from the institute he can get, the better. The more he runs, the more the pain in his legs moves up his calves and into his thighs, the more he forgets. There’s no dead body back home, no blood on his hands. Izzy is fine and Jace is fine and Clary is fine. No one’s dead, and if he keeps on running then he’ll forget anyone can die at all.

That’s the plan, run forever and ever until the world is spinning so fast it _has_ to stop and his arms drop off and he can’t remember a _single thing_.

He’s running down the middle of a road, but it’s okay, no one can see him. No one can see him and soon he’ll forget he exists if he can run fast enough - if he can hurt deep enough. There’s so much noise and so many lights that Alec wants to crush his ears in and take his eyes out but it’s good, in a way, the noises are so loud he can’t think properly. The pain in his legs is so strong that he can feel himself slowing.

‘ _No, no, no!’_ he thinks. He has to keep running, he can still remember too much, he still knows who he is - _what_ he is. He can still feel his lungs go black and he can still feel his stomach churning and he can -

It should take more than the sharp pain of rough tarmac against his palms for him to realise he’s not running anymore. The grit now embedded the cuts on his hand stings and Alec wants to smile. He can’t move his face that way though. He moves on old reflexes, whips his whole body around to dodge the tire of a passing car. He doesn’t have time to wish he hadn’t before he’s upright again with his head _screaming_ and his hands on fire. His legs don’t feel real, he pats down his thighs to make sure they haven’t gone missing.

He’ll never get it right, it’s always going to be an unfair deal. His feet are moving again - he’s on the sidewalk now though, trying to dodge between pedestrians while staring down at his own hands in disbelief, like he can’t quite believe he still has them.

It takes him a minute to realise where he's walking, but he can see familiar signs and store windows. He lets his feet take him.

Climbing fire escapes is easy when no one can see you. Alec knows he should just go to Magnus’s door and knock but he doesn’t know what he would say. He can’t say ‘hi’, that would be _ridiculous,_ given the circumstances. He wants to be somewhere he feels comfortable, even if he only gets as far as Magnus’s fire escape it’s still better than the institute.

He wants to sit down but his legs have stopped working now and he can barely bend them enough to walk from one side of the fire escape to the other. Alec glances nervously through the window into Magnus’s apartment and feels his breath hold in his chest. He doesn’t quite know how to approach, so he leans against the ladder instead and cradles his injured hand in his other. He’s shaken most of the grit out now so all that was left was the incisions his bow string had left and the deep, red indents from breaking his fall.

He doesn’t notice Magnus approaching until he hears the door click open. He doesn’t know where to look. Magnus looks at Alec’s hands, and Alec wants to chop them off just to stop Magnus looking at him like that.

“You okay?” Magnus asks. And Alec doesn’t have the energy to lie and say yes.

“I can’t be in that institute.” He says instead, because it’s an easier truth to tell.

“Oh, Alec.” Magnus says, in a resigned tone that makes Alec feel sick again. He just wants to stop making everyone around him look at him like they want to fix him. He wants to stop being something people feel they need to _fix_.

He wants to say something, but nothing fits. He says, “I heard you turned in Camille. How did that go?” Instead, because he cares, and it’s enough to cover his hands for a moment.

“Honestly?” Magnus says, “It was awful. We had a lot of history, she and I.” He stops, concerned, “I’m sorry if that’s weird.”

Alec prods his fingers into the cuts on his hands and tries not to react to the sear of pain that jolts through his arm. His legs feel like they’re still burning. “It’s not weird.” He says, but he still can’t bring his eyes up to meet Magnus’s the way he wants to, “Say what you think.”

“Too busy to use the healing rune?” Magnus asks, and Alec stops fiddling with his hands. He wants to pretend they don’t exist. He wants Magnus to stop looking but he can’t figure out how.

“I'm fine.” He says, knowing Magnus won’t believe him. But anything is worth a shot.

“No, you're not. You're hurting. _Badly_.” Magnus says, and Alec wants to look anywhere that isn’t in Magnus’s eyes or at his face or - “You hope the pain here -“ Magnus turns his hand over slowly, “will overpower the pain there.” He points to his heart, and Alec wants to laugh. He’s not quite sure he has a heart anymore, but he still can’t find the strength to reach inside his chest and check if it’s still there. “I wish it were that simple.”

Alec wishes that too.

“I let a demon in, Magnus.” He says, and he just wants Magnus to do something, he wants to do something himself. He wants time to go backward or to fall off the fire escape or reach a hand into his own chest or crash his skull against something _hard_. He just wants something to happen that doesn’t involve having to speak.

“That wasn't your fault.”, Magnus says very, very deliberately. Sounding out the syllables so strong that Alec wants to flinch.

“I don't know what to say to Clary.” He says, before he can hear any more excuses. “I can't face her.”

“But you will. Because that's what you do, Alexander. It may take you a minute, but I've seen it up close. I went to your wedding.” Magnus says simply, as if Alec is capable of doing something like that again. “You'll blow up the very ground you stand on to make something right.”

Alec wants to look at him. He tries but it’s so hard not to stare at his hands and stare at the floor and run his fingers against his thighs. He’s real, he can be sure of that for now. He’s never quite sure if Magnus is.

“Thank you.” Alec says, finally. “You’re kind.”

“You deserve kindness.” Magnus replies. Alec continues to stare down at his feet. “I mean it, Alec.” Magnus says, more slowly this time, more solemn.

Alec shifts, embarrassed and the weight of how undeserving he feels seems to force his head down even lower. He manages another “Thank you.”

“Come inside?” Magnus asks, and offers out his hand for Alec. He doesn’t realise what he’s doing until Magnus is pulling him inside slightly and Alec notices he’d given Magnus his injured hand. He feels like the floor has disappeared beneath his feet for a second, he wants to pull his hand back but the contact is so warm and comforting that he also never wants to let go of Magnus’s hand ever again.

Magnus motions towards his couch but Alec makes no move to go sit. “I’m going to make tea.” Magnus says, and Alec just nods his head and lets himself be led into the kitchen.

He lets go of Magnus’s hand before Magnus has to ask him to. He leans rigidly against a countertop while Magnus goes through his cupboards to find what he’s looking for.

Alec hates tea, but he doesn’t care right now - he’d drink sea water is Magnus offered. He can taste vomit in his mouth even though he doesn't remember throwing up, but he can’t remember a lot of things recently.

“You want to choose your own mug?” Magnus asks with a smile that Alec desperately wants to return but his face still won’t work when he asks it to.

“I’m not five.” He says, but he’s already moving towards the other side of the kitchen to reach up to where Magnus keeps some of his everyday dishes. Magnus stops him before he gets there and is bending down to open a cupboard underneath his sink.

He pushes a few things aside and Alec bends next to him. He can feel searing hot pain race up and down his legs but he doesn’t say anything, barely even flinches. He’s not aware he’s supposed to be looking in the cupboard until Magnus says “Pick one.” and gestures inside.

Alec lets out a slight huff of amusement when he looks in to see about 15 or so horrid souvenir mugs.

“I used to collect them in the 70s.” Magnus says, “I don’t know why I did, or why I’ve even keep them. They’re a little ridiculous.”

Alec stares a little again, and feels stupid asking “You’ve been to all these places?” But Magnus doesn’t look at him like he’s stupid, or like he’s naive, or like he’s a killer, or someone who needs pity. He just says yes, and starts a story about a late night in Nice.

Alec wants to kiss him. The kettle whistles and Magnus is up and moving before Alec can even begin to process that thought into action. He picks up a mug from the cupboard with Niagara Falls written over it in garish, blue font. He picks up one that he thinks is from Rome for Magnus and pushes up against the floor to try standing again.

His legs are burning but he’s moving over to where Magnus is. He puts the mugs down and taps on Magnus’s shoulder causing him to spin around. He’s closer than Alec thought, he can see the small movement of his head cocking to the side slightly curious. Alec leans forward and moves his hand from Magnus’s shoulder to the base of his neck and kisses him. He heard a slight bump as Magnus leans back against the countertop. Alec was standing up too straight but he knew his knees would collapse under him if he tried to slouch at all, but Magnus was pulling his head down a little trying to compensate for Alec's unnatural posture. Alec couldn’t help but want to disappear.

It wasn’t the best kiss, Alec thought. His nose had collided with Magnus’s and he’d been a bit too eager, but he didn’t mind - neither did Magnus from what he could tell.

“I’ll never get tired of you.” Alec says, lifting his face away from Magnus’s.

Magnus stilled, and he smiled, and Alec couldn’t smile back but he wanted to, _he wanted to so badly._

“I never thought I’d have someone like you.” He says, because it’s true and because Magnus is a warlock with magic so powerful he could break all the bones in Alec’s body with a flick of his wrist - hell, he probably didn't even need his magic to do that, but he hides a collection of souvenir mugs under his sink. And Alec can’t process what that means and he can't stop staring and he can’t stop himself selfishly wanting all of this. Alec can’t control it, so much is happening and Alec doesn’t deserve hot tea or a kind man or a warm place to sleep, but he just can’t help but _want_ it.

“I never thought I’d have someone like _you._ ” Magnus says in return, and Alec pretends to believe he’s even half what Magnus deserves.

“You can stay here tonight,” Magnus says. “I’d _like_ you to stay here tonight. We can talk about things - if you want to.” He’s pouring tea into both their mugs now and Alec doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He wants to curl up beside Magnus and never leave, but he can’t do that.

He just nods instead and follows Magnus back to his couch without saying anything else.

**_Five._ **

Alec’s not sure what time it is. His tea went cold a while ago, but he’s not sure how to measure time from that.

Magnus’s apartment lacked many clocks. He’d never felt brave enough to ask why, but he presumed being immortal made you a little immune to minutes and seconds.

Alec’s lying on the couch with his back propped against one arm and his legs draped over Magnus’s lap. He thinks they look like a couple from one of the films Izzy used to force him and Jace to sneak out and watch. He’d never saw the appeal of this sort of intimacy when he was younger, but now it’s the only thing that’s making him feel anything close to _okay_.

They haven’t talked yet. Well, not about the elephant in the room, Alec’s been trying to steer the conversation away from that as best he can. Magnus is speaking about Vegas, he thinks, Alec’s not quite sure he’s keeping up with the story. Magnus’s hands are flying around in that excited way they do when he’s remembering, and Alec wants to stay here forever. He wants to hear everything Magnus has to offer.

The story ends, Alec guesses, cause Magnus is looking at Alec’s hands again - he’d healed them as soon as they’d sat down but Alec wasn’t under any illusion that meant he was off the hook.

“I’m sorry for all this.” Alec says, to break the silence more than anything. “I’m sure you had better plans than babysitting me all evening.”

Magnus looks up and gives him another smile, “You’ve no need to apologise.” He replies, and Alec wants to argue but he knows he wouldn't win. “Do you want to talk about it? I’m not going to force you or anything, but clearly -“ He gestures to Alec’s hand, “internalising all this isn’t going very well.”

Alec nods but doesn’t look up.

“You can run from your problems, I can’t stop you, but the more you run the sooner you will realise that the world is in fact very, _very_ small. Believe me.” Magnus continues, and Alec _wants_ to run. He wants to move his dead legs and run back through the city and fall over again and shoot his bow till he bleeds again but it doesn’t work like that. It’s not that easy.

“I just -“ He’s not sure what he wants to say, or if he wants to say anything at all. He doesn't want to lose Magnus, he doesn't want to talk about the noises and the blood and the dead body at the institute. He wants to drink cold tea and pretend he’s in a movie. He doesn’t want to have to _think_ . “I don’t know how I’m supposed to live with myself. If I can’t change this, if I can’t bring -“ He pauses and swallows down _hard_ , “ _her_ back then - I don’t know what to do. I don’t know why I’m still here if i can’t fix this. I don’t know -“ He stops. He can’t think, the smoke in his brain is back and he can’t figure out why or how -

“Time is bigger than us all, Alexander. Even me. It’s a long, _long_ line. But I can assure you of one thing, it does not fold in upon itself. The past is over, you cannot go back and try to fix it. What is done is done, and it will not happen again.” He reaches out and takes Alec’s hand tentatively. “ _Alexander_ ,” Magnus continues, more pointedly - looking straight at him. “Just because you can’t go back, that doesn’t mean you shouldn't keep going forward.”

He wants Magnus to grip his hand so tight that all Alec’s fingers break. He wants to stop speaking but he also wants to keep talking until his jaw breaks. He wants someone to know what it is that’s inside of him, he wants to know that himself. He wants to be sure of anything - anything at all - right now.

There’s so much smoke in his head and so much growling all around him and there’s a slight but ever present _bang bang bang_ coming towards him and all he wants to do is breathe correctly.

He used to survive because he had to. People _needed_ him, he protected them. He saved lives and in turn that saved his. He’d never been brave, not once in his life. He was alive because people counted on him to be so, but now -

 _Now_ he didn’t know who he was, or why he was here. It seemed everyone knew more about Alec than Alec did about himself. He wants to cut himself open and peer inside himself, try see what was in there. He can feel his organs rotting inside him sometimes, if he concentrates enough. He can still see the blood on his hands. It doesn’t stop. _He just needs it to stop._

Magnus is still looking at him and Alec is still not looking at Magnus, not properly.

When bad things happen, it feels like they’re going to be the end of everything. It feels like everything is going to stop right there and then, and there’s no possible, conceivable way that things could keep going afterward. But nothing stops, and time keeps moving on. And that’s the worst part.

Alec wants to be eaten alive by all this, he wants to crawl inside the mouth of the beast and be chewed up. But he’s not even allowed that. He has to keep on going while the world turns to tar around him. Makes him want to scream and cry and throw his fists until the walls collapse.

“You don’t need to fight every battle alone, you know.” Magnus’s fingers find their way to Alec’s hair. Alec wants to move again. He feels like his blood is on fire and he wants to shake himself down and run but -

“I’m tough.” He says, instead of running. And he doesn’t mean that, he means: _I’d like to see how anyone else would handle this._ He means: _I’d give anything to stop this._ But he doesn’t say any of that, he’s never going to.

“We’re not in disagreement about that, Alexander.” Magnus says in an almost sing-song tone. “But it takes courage to admit you’re scared, you know.”

Alec doesn’t want to be courageous, he wants to be dead. Or he wants to stop existing at least. There’s a whole chunk of his brain that feels like it’s been clawed out of his head and his hands never feel like they’re really his and there’s a constant noise coming to get him and -

There’s too much shit to think about, and he can’t think right at all. _And_ -

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.” He says, and Magnus stops stroking his hair and moves his hand down to Alec’s shoulder.

“Death is not just the tragedy of those who’ve passed, Alexander. It burdens those who survive as well.” And Alec wants to spit and hiss and scream that he doesn’t deserve to feel better and he deserves to be in this hell he's in, but he can’t raise his voice and can’t make a noise except a little sigh that trails into a whine. He doesn’t want to think about Magnus and all the people he’s lost over the course of his life - he _can’t_ think about what he’s going through and if Magnus has felt like this before. He doesn’t want _anyone_ to feel like this. It's too much.

“What do I do now?” He asks, and he’s not sure if he wants an answer. He wants the noises to stop and he wants the blood to stop and he wants Magnus to not look at him like he’s missing his hands.

His head shakes. He’d cry if he could, but nothing happens even when he tries to frown.

How does he even _begin_ to think about moving on?

“I’m going to make some more tea.” Magnus says, abruptly, “Then we’re going to go to sleep. And then, in the morning, you’re going to get up and just keep going.”

Alec stares ahead of him. It’s a decent answer, he doesn’t know what he’d expected honestly. But he still wants an alternative, he wants Magnus to say he’ll fix everything, he wants to go back in time and stop the demon before it even enters the institute, he wants to stop the growl and the _bang bang bang_ and the whisper and the blood.

Magnus tilts his head and smiles. “Which isn’t the answer you want to hear, is it?” He chuckles softly, “Well, it’s the only answer there is. Tomorrow you’re going to wake up, put one foot in front of the other and keep on marching forward. And you're going to do that until the day it stops feeling like a choice you have to make. Believe me, I’m old and wise.” He laughs again, and Alec almost does as well - he tries at least. “My history could beat up your history.”

Magnus leaves briefly to refill his cup, he courteously notices Alec never finished his and doesn’t offer a refill. They sit for a while. Alec still wants to run, he wants to feel the heat in his legs again and the feeling of everything rushing by him too quickly. He wants to feel alive, but he doesn’t run. Not tonight.

“What do you want to do now?” Magnus asks, “Tonight.” He clarifies. And Alec hates decisions too much at the moment that he wants to stay quiet. He wants to be led around and told what he’s supposed to do and what he’s supposed to say.

“I want to wash my hands.” He says, and Magnus is smiling again and Alec hopes Magnus doesn’t think he’s stupid.

“Well, we can do that. That one’s easy.” And he’s standing and Alec’s standing too.

Magnus’s bathroom is a clean, white blur. He can’t hear much over the sound of the _bang bang bang_ and the growl that are getting closer and louder, but there’s water running into the basin and Magnus is coaxing Alec over towards him.

The water’s warm, Alec wishes it was hotter or colder or something that wasn’t the temperature of blood. He pulls his hands in and out of the water slowly and tries to focus on the sound of the droplets falling from his fingers onto the surface of the water.

Magnus’s bathroom has soft, dim lighting - nothing like the harsh fluorescent lights at home that make his brain feel like it’s boiling inside his skull. He’s trying his best not to catch his reflection in the mirror and he's trying his best to stand upright and he’s trying so hard to not think about blood on his hands all the way up to his wrist and under his fingernails. Fingernails that are chewed so short these days. Alec wants to pull them out, he knows Magnus wouldn’t let him. He wants to ask Magnus to paint over them with nail polish so he can’t keep catching flashes of red underneath them, but he doesn’t want to waste Magnus’s nice things on his dirty, blood-soaked hands.

He dries his hands off and looks at Magnus, who’s looking at him with an expression that Alec doesn’t know the meaning of.

Magnus says they can go to sleep if he wants. And he does want to. And he doesn’t have the energy to register how stupid he sounds when he asks Magnus if they can keep the light on, and he doesn't have the energy to process the look Magnus gives him at that either.

Magnus finds Alec a t-shirt to sleep in and goes about getting himself ready for bed. Alec watches as Magnus removes his makeup and lets his hair go slack with a soft flicker of blue light.

Alec wants to never leave this moment. He wants it to loop forever. He wants nothing to exist before or after the 15 minutes it takes for them to move from the bathroom into bed.

Alec lays his head on Magnus’s chest and can hear Magnus’s heartbeat and the slow, steady sound of his breathing. It doesn’t block out the other sounds entirely, but between that and the pain still jolting up his legs, it’s enough that he can sleep.

In the morning, Magnus pours him a cup of coffee his tackiest Vegas mug and Alec smiles up at him. They don’t talk much, Magnus says he’s bad at mornings, Alec’s not sure if that’s a lie for his sake but he’s okay with the silence for once.

Alec uses the door this time, manages a quick “Thank you.” to Magnus before he leaves. He doesn’t want to leave at all but he can’t stop time moving on, as much as he wishes to.

**_Six._ **

It’s simple in theory.

One foot, then the other. _Easy_.

Except it’s not. His legs still ache and Alec thinks that if he stops focussing on walking for even a second he might just topple over.

It really shouldn’t be this hard. One foot, then the other. One step, then the next. But everything is so loud again and the sunlight is making his eyes screw up. He wants to look directly at the sun and burn his retinas out. He wants to plug his ears shut with wet mud. He wants to stop walking and fall into the road and wait for something, _anything_ , to happen.

One foot, then the other. And it should be _so easy_. It shouldn’t take so much time to process and so much effort to get his feet to follow each other and walk down the sidewalk.

He has to go back, as much as he wants to run as far as his broken, dead legs could take him, he has to go back and face up to what he’s done. There’s a bang and a whisper and a growl that seem impossibly loud over the traffic and the conversation going on in the streets all around him. His hands are covering his ears before he can tell them not to - not that it helps. Everything is _useless_ . Everything is _so damn loud_.

Running is too hard to even warrant thinking about now. If he could, he’d want to run to the ocean. He can’t swim, no one ever taught him how, but he’d always lay down in the bath as a kid and let the water surround his ears and stop all the noises around him from hitting him so abruptly. He wants that - but _bigger_ . He wants all the sound around him to be damp and slow and not feel like it’s sinking straight into his brain and eating his thoughts away and, _god, god god_ , he wants to _run._

But it’s not worth thinking about. At least not until his feet work properly.

He straightens his spine out. One foot, then the other. It’s easy because he’s going to _make it easy_ , even if he has to stop thinking about everything else, he's going to walk in a straight line back to the institute. Even if he has to stop breathing to manage it.

One foot, one foot, one foot - ‘ _Stupid_ .’ He thinks, ‘ _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ ’. One foot, then the other. One step forward, no steps back - he’s not allowed to go back.

He thinks about time travel.

He thinks: _Stupid_.

He thinks about his feet.

Then he doesn’t think at all until the institute is in sight. He wants to drop to his knees and he wants to break every bone in his stupid, useless body and he wants to run to the ocean.

But he walks into the institute instead.

It takes him a while to remember where Clary’s room is, he’s only been maybe half a dozen times since she’d moved here. Takes him even longer to get his feet moving again.

He doesn’t let himself notice the colour of her hair or the curve of her nose or the way her eyes look, because if he does all he’ll see is Jocelyn’s face as she lay on the ground with her guts spilled and her eyes still open and staring right at him.

Instead, he says sorry. Instead, he tells her he’d do anything to fix this, and he means it.

And she’s talking back about warlocks and her mom and how there’s a way, if they’re willing. And Alec’s willing - he’d do _anything_.

Then there’s more walking, and Alec’s better at it now. Clary’s talking some more but he can’t listen, he can’t focus in on her words because he’s feeling something close to content. They’re going to her her mom back, he knows they will, because Alec’s willing to give his life for it and he’s pretty sure Clary wouldn’t stop him.

He can pretend to be smart and logical and pretend to ask all the right questions when they get there, but he doesn’t care much as long as Jocelyn comes back and then he can stop feeling like he’s being eaten from the inside out by something with sharp teeth.

By the time he realises they’re in trouble it’s too late. He’s failed, again. And Clary’s saving herself this time cause Alec’s too slow and too weak and can’t move his damn legs and can’t ask the right questions.

It’s stupid, _he’s stupid_ . Thinking he could walk right into the solution. Stupid _and selfish_ to think there’d be any resolution other than the guilt and the pain and the noises and the blood.

Shadows pool at his feet statically. There’s no resolution.

-

It’s morning. Alec wakes to the beeping of his alarm and thinks: _Get up. Pick out your clothes. Shower. Get dressed. Brush your teeth. Training._

But there’s a slight weight at the end of his bed. He looks up from his pillow and sees his suit laid out on a hanger.

He’d forgot to move it after Izzy had finished ironing his shirt last night when he’d come to her room almost frantic after forgetting _how_.

It was a ridiculous notion, to invite the killer to the victims funeral. He didn’t deserve to grieve, he didn’t deserve closure. He wasn’t sure what he did deserve, but he’s sure it would be more akin to a slit throat than attending such a ceremony.

He gets up and picks up the suit as he makes his way to the bathroom. The fluorescent lights sting his eyes but he doesn’t give himself time to adjust before he hangs his suit up on the door and heads for the shower.

His hands move by themselves and turn the temperature higher. There’s a vague and distant thought in his head about wanting to burn his skin off, but he can’t focus on anything but his suit on the door. It’s only been worn a few times, and he’d complained on every occasion about the itch of the cuffs on his wrists and Izzy had always told him to be quiet and toughen up. He wonder if she’ll say that today.

The water pours down his back while he tries to remember what he’s supposed to do next. Everything has become an extraordinary effort of remembering. Every task ends up being several smaller ones, and even then it takes his brain a while to remember all the steps. Hair, he thinks, he needs to wash that. And his teeth - but that’s later on. He does that after, he’s pretty sure.

Thinking is so hard. All he wants is to sit down and have the hot water fall on his back for so long it starts to erode him. He wants to waste away.

He can’t. So he looks back up at his suit.

There’s a loud clatter as the various bottles of body wash and shampoo at his feet fall. His back is pressed against the shower wall and hot water is being sprayed all over his face but he can’t close his eyes.

His suits covered in blood. There’s almost no white left on it, it’s dark and red and dripping from those itchy cuffs and he can’t look away.

His eyes burn and he thinks he might be crying but there’s no way he can be sure. It’s hard to breathe, it’s hard to look - but he can’t tear his eyes away.

Shifting his weight slightly he brings his head out from under the spray of water and tries to let his eyes focus. He swears he can hear the buzz of electricity flowing around the room. The growl is there, as always, and the whispering is so loud that for the first time he’s sure he can make out the word ‘ _demon_ ’, but it’s so hard to tell.

The blood’s dripping onto the floor and he can hear it, it’s distinctly different from the flow of water around him. It’s loud, it sounds like liquid on metal, it sounds like it’s talking.

He can’t stop looking so he forces his hands over his eyes and puts his head back under the spray of water and tries to focus his mind of the hissing it makes instead of the growl and whisper and _drip drip drip_.

When he finally spreads his fingers and peers through the gaps they make, the blood is gone.

He steps out the shower and walks over to his suit, turning over the cuffs with damp fingers - nothing.

He’s not sure how he’s still breathing but he is. Alec just wants to stop, but he can’t. Instead, he dries himself off and puts on his suit and tries to stop checking the sleeves for any sign of red.

He brushes his teeth and doesn’t look in the mirror. His hands don’t feel like they’re attached to his body anymore and his brain is nothing but smoke.

Izzy knocks on the door and leads him to the funeral without a single word, he’s not sure he’d be able to talk if she did try to speak to him.

It hasn’t been easy to be present ever since this all started. His hands itch like phantom limbs and he thinks about his brain and his body and about what could cut off contact between them so cleanly.

He doesn’t remember the funeral. His face is wet with tears when he’s back in his room with Izzy by his side.

They don’t talk, Alec’s sure now that he couldn’t make his thoughts into sounds no matter how hard he tried - but he doesn’t try. Izzy puts her head on his shoulder and runs her hand over his.

If he could, he’d tell her about how his hands are missing, even though they’re still there. If he could, he’s tell her about the noise and the blood and the shadows. If he could, he’d tell her that he loves her.

But he can’t.

—

_Get up. Pick out your clothes. Shower. Get dressed. Brush your teeth. Training._

Izzy comments on his lack of shoes like she’s talking about the weather, and he knows her tone is deliberately flat when she smiles at him and tries to hide that look of concern that Alec is growing to hate.

Everything was so easy before but now every action had a hundred little steps he had to remember to get it right, and Alec kept on failing no matter how hard he tried to keep up. He doesn’t know if he just doesn’t care anymore about things like wearing shoes and wearing clean shirts or if it’s part of the blur of absolute confusion that seems to cling to every single thought he can get to stick in his head.

Izzy doesn’t question him, she just leads him back to his bedroom to find a pair of shoes that aren’t too scuffed up. Sometimes he wants her to ask. He wants her to call him stupid and lazy and weak - but she’s never going to.

Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, he wants the demon to come back from the dead and finish Izzy’s speech. He wants to hear all those things come from Izzy’s mouth again. He just wants someone to care enough to hurt him - he’s so tired of doing it himself.

—

_Get up. Pick out your clothes. Shower. Get dressed. Brush your teeth. Training._

Everything is too bright in the daytime. He wants to curl up under his bedsheets or crawl under his bed itself like the monster he knows he is. The dark is so loud and full of shapes and shadows that twist and turn wherever he looks, but he can’t see his hands so clearly in the dark.

When he was alone there was no one to try and convince of anything. He could stare blankly at nothingness and not have to explain why he couldn’t look at the corners of his room or why he’d stopped flinching anymore or why he couldn’t stop running his hands over his thighs these days.

He wants the world to stop. He’s in bed again, sitting up straight and trying to push past tiredness. He feels like the floor is disappearing beneath him for the millionth time this week. It’s a strange thing to get used to, but he nearly has. It takes time, but he’s learning his new baseline of normality now.

It’s hard to determine when it started and when it got worse and where he actually is with it all now. Jocelyn could have died yesterday or 4 years ago, Alec can’t really tell anymore. He can see it all in his head, but it’s like a slideshow. First, he’s looking at the images thoughtfully, and with intent, and they are clear and defined from each other. But soon they all blur together and are moving too fast to pick out any discernible detail.

He wants the world to stop, but he can’t make it. He doesn’t know how. He wants to turn back time and bring back Jocelyn, but he can’t do that either.

The list of things Alec wants and the list of things he can do are beginning to have fewer common topics every day.

He gets up. He’s remembering how to walk better recently, one foot in front of the other, repeat, repeat, repeat. It’s easy. Everything else will be just as easy again soon, he hopes.

The light in his bathroom stays off. It’s too bright all the time and he feels like smashing the fluorescent bulbs into pieces with his hands, he thinks about the feeling of glass crushing into the soft skin of his palms, thinks about the blood dripping between his fingers.

Hands out stretched and waving slowly from side to side, he finds his way to the sink. He feels around for the tap and the plug and the soap and begins filling up the basin with hot water.

Fingers lain over the side of the sink, he waits for the water to scold the tips of them before turning the tap back off and sinking his hands in.

The water is so hot that it doesn’t even remind him of the blood. Hope is a stupid thing, he’d decided, but he still hopes the water might burn the skin off his hands. He’s not sure how deep the blood has stained them. For a moment he’s thinking about having no hands, and he smiles.

—

He thinks: _Get up. Pick out your clothes. Shower. Get dressed. Brush your teeth. Training._

But he’s stuck on step one.

It feels like all his limbs have turned to lead. He tries, really _really_ tries, to move his arm, but it’s as if the order gets lost between his brain and his hand because nothing even twitches.

It takes him two more hours to actually move, no one asks any questions when he finally walks into the control room.

—

The days are long and they never make sense to him anymore. It’s not right, the way everyone is moving on and trying to forget. He wants something to happen, he wants to be punished but it seems like even that task has fallen at his own feet.

Everyday he gets up and follows the list the best he can and it works, mostly. He can move most days and he only forgets to complete some of his tasks occasionally, and no one points out the lack of shoes anymore.

There are more important things to think about. There are missions to complete and demons to kill and Valentine is still out there, somewhere.

Time doesn’t stop, as many times as Alec tries to dig his nails into the earth and stop it spinning.

Izzy is his sister and he’s thankful for that cause it means she never asks him to slow down or sit this round out, it means that she’s had the same rules and values drilled into her head that he has and she’s not going to tell him to stop.

There is a warehouse and there are demons and there is a whole backstory that Alec isn’t listening to. He has his bow and his sister has her whip and Jace wants to use his fists, but doesn’t.

Alec hits off centre. Works just as well, he can tell by the triumphant thud on the ground. It’s a victory, but not one he’s proud of.

Izzy and Jace are somewhere else in the building, he can hear noises coming from all around him but the directions are lost on him. The bang and growl are so loud in his ears that he’s not sure what to do except keep standing and keep concentrating as hard as he can on his feet touching the ground and his hand around his bow, trying to convince himself they’re all real.

The walls of the room he’s in are pulsating. Moving rhythmically in and out just slightly. He can almost hear it, like it’s breathing. But he doesn’t think about that.

His feet might not be real, he’s not sure. Stomping one hard against the concrete floor sends a sharp pain up his leg, but he can’t determine if that means he’s real or not. Recently, his brain has been so good at making things up that he’s never sure of what he can trust.

The room is breathing, but Alec’s not thinking about it. He’s not thinking about the warehouse and how it’s breathing and how it’s eating him alive and -

He’s not thinking about the blood on his hands or the sound of something approaching that sounds nothing like Izzy or Jace or even a demon.

He’s trying to remember the names of all his body parts as he goes through a mental checklist trying to ascertain whether or not they’re all still attached to him. His feet hurt and his legs are shaking and his hand is circled to tightly around his bow he knows that if he could open his eyes he’d see his knuckles turn white. He can’t look though, he can hear the walls breathe but he can’t open his eyes.

There’s a clatter. A door opens and he hears Jace and he hears Izzy and one of them is asking him something but he can’t tell who and he can’t answer. He just pries his eyes open and exits the room, barging past them both and striding down the corridor as fast as his weak legs can carry him.

He knows better than to ask if they can feel the house move.

They meet him outside. The brisk, cold air all around him makes his mind clearer and softens the sounds all around him. Suddenly, they’re walking, and Alec is following. Jace and Izzy are talking, they might even be talking to him, but he can’t really hear them. He doesn’t know what’s controlling his feet, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t know what’s controlling his mind, but he’s too scared to ask.

His bedroom is cold and dark. He thinks: _Get up. Pick out your clothes. Shower. Get dressed. Brush your teeth. Training._ But that’s not the right list for now.

He doesn't even take off his shoes before clambering into bed and forcing his eyes shut.

There are more important things to worry about than this.

—

An emergency is when you’re bleeding. An emergency is when you’re just about to be caught. An Emergency is when you’re being rescued. _Emergency is being saved_. Alec doesn’t need saved, he thinks, so it’s not an emergency. He’s going to get used to this or die trying. The days turn over into one another, he can count it in terms of weeks now, and he’s not being saved because there’s nothing to rescue him from. There’s no stopping the noise and the blood and the shadows all around him, there’s nothing to be rescued from - it’s not an emergency so he doesn’t need to panic.

The dust will settle. The smoke will clear out from his head, if he can just keep remembering how to move then it will be fine.

No one’s going to kill him, no matter how much he begs. No one will even hit him, but he can take care of that himself.

The dust will settle. Somewhere, Alec will find a new limit to live in, and he’ll keep his list and he’ll know who he is again. The smoke will clear and he’ll be able to see again, and think again, and move without having to force it.

An emergency is when you are being rescued. This isn’t an emergency. Time keeps on moving and Alec can’t make it go backwards, he’s given up trying.

**_Seven._ **

Tokyo is loud and _bright_ . Alec’s too happy to care about how his eyes sting and his ears are ringing because he’s still trying to wrap his head around what’s happening. He’s in _Tokyo_ on a _date_. He’s not sure that’s something he has the capacity to get his head around - even before he factors Magnus into the equation.

He’s not sure whether Magnus is arguing or negotiating with this particular store owner. Alec decides to leave them to resolve whatever issue seems to have arisen between them and slinks out of the shop door. The street outside is packed with people heading in all different directions and into every possible open door around. He decides to step into the shop next door, if only to stop feeling like an idiot as people curved around him as he stood still in the middle of the street.

The shop is small and most of the floor space is taken up by tables and shelves. He wanders slowly between them, trying his best not to clumsily knock anything over as he picks up items at random to inspect.

A table in the far corner is covered in small, brocade pouches in every colour Alec could think off. He runs his hand over a few before picking up one in a deep orange colour.

“Luck,” Someone says behind him and Alec jumps slightly startled as he turns, “and protection.”

The woman who’d appeared next to him, who Alec could only assume worked here, smiled at him.

“Sorry?” He said, feeling slightly out of place and entirely ridiculous.

“That one brings luck and protection.” She says, and Alec manages a little ‘Oh.’ as he runs his hands over it again.

“Can I buy it?” He asks, and curses himself internally for making a habit out of asking stupid questions. But the lady just smiles up at him again and nods her head, turning to walk to her cash register.

He hands over a few of the blueish bank notes Magnus had stuffed in his pocket earlier and thanks the woman before heading back out into the streets.

Magnus is walking out of the store with a new shopping bag in hand and Alec wants to ask if perfect timing is just one of his natural talents. He doesn’t say anything though, just smiles at Magnus and waits to be led off somewhere new.

Tokyo is loud and it’s bright and Alec wants Magnus to say they can stay here forever because he doesn’t have to turn and see familiarity wherever he looks. It’s loud and bright and it hurts his head to look at the streetlights too long but there’s no Clary and no Izzy and no Jace and no dead bodies and no blood on the floor.

He doesn’t say anything when Magnus opens up a portal back to his loft, but he forgets how to smile for a second.

—

It’s easy to get mad at Jace when he knows Jace isn’t listening to him. It’s easy to plead for an answer he knows he won’t get.

They’re parabatai, but recently he’s not sure if they’re friends.

Usually, the way to handle Jace was to remove all obstacles in his way and let him charge at whatever he’s fighting head on, preferably with a knife in hand. Alec’s not sure what the obstacles are this time, he’s not sure he understands what Jace is even fighting.

He wants to tell Jace to get up, pick out his clothes, shower, get dressed, brush his teeth and go to training, but that’s Alec’s list and it barely works for him these days either.

It’s easy to be mad at Jace when Jace is mad at himself, the lines get blurred and Alec’s never sure what he’s feeling is his own. He wants Jace to hit him, he wants to hit Jace, he wants them to go to training and kill demons and -

He wants his life back, but he’s never going to be that lucky.

Instead, he says “This isn’t you.” and he means it, but he doesn’t tell Jace that he’s not himself either. He doesn’t tell Jace about blood and shadows and whispers and growls. Part of him wants to gouge his parabatai rune out his skin with his hands, part of him wants Jace to reach inside his chest and pull out his heart.

 _All_ of him wants to disappear, more than anything. He bites down on the inside of his cheeks and tries his best to keep remembering how his feet work.

—

Magnus is speaking and Alec is listening, it feels like the first time in weeks that anything has actually gone into his head and stayed there. He’s listening, _he is_ , because it’s _important_ , and Magnus is smiling and Alec is trying so hard to make sure he doesn’t stop, so he’s not talking back. He's not moving.

Magnus is talking about sex, he’s talking about being ready and he’s talking about how it’s not going to be what Alec thinks it is, not really. And Alec is nodding, slightly, and Magnus is smiling bigger and bigger and Alec isn’t sure that anything exists except the space between them, and he’s desperate for that to disappear as well.

He’s not thinking, but he’s not trying to _not_ think anymore. There are noises and there are colours and there are things Alec never wants to give a name to, but it’s okay. Magnus is smiling at him and he might just never think again for the rest of his life.

Alec’s happy. He’d showered, brushed his teeth, worn his shirt that Izzy says makes him look handsome. He’d done everything properly today.

“If you want this, then I want this.” Alec says, “I’m ready.” And he wants to move and kiss Magnus and he wants to run to the streets and never turn back and he wants his hands to stop shaking.

“I want this.” Magnus replies, and for the second time this month Alec has someone’s heart in his hands, and he isn’t sure why this time is even more terryfying. Sometimes Magnus is so _magical_ that Alec feels like he can’t reach him. But now, Magnus seems so simple. Alec can feel all the pieces coming together and fitting perfectly in line.

He’s not allowed this, but he wants it. He’s not _supposed_ to want it, but he _does_ . And Magnus is here and he’s so many things all at once that Alec can’t believe he’s just one person. Alec wants Magnus, and Magnus wants him back and it’s _not allowed_ and he’s not _supposed_ to want this but he does and he might just rip apart anyone who tries taking it from him.

Magnus moves first. He kisses Alec and pushes him down onto his back and Alec can smile today so he does and it feels _good_. Magnus trails scratchy kisses down his neck and Alec’s can’t hear a thing except for his own breath and the little noises Magnus is making because he’s ignoring everything else.

He wants to sink his teeth in and he wants to be still and he wants to run away but with Magnus in tow. He wants this. He wants everything Magnus is willing to give. He wants his skin and his mouth and the touching and kissing and he wants the scraps of the floor and all the noise.

 _And, and, and_ -

He wants to keep kissing Magnus until the world ends.

Magnus is looking up at him, propping himself up on his elbows.

“Hi.” Alec says, and feels like turning and running at how stupid he sounds.

But Magnus just smiles again and says “Hello,” and laughs. Alec can’t believe he’s here, he can feel every nerve in his fingers like they’re on fire as they trace down Magnus’s arms. He wants to ask Magnus what to do. He wants to know what he’s supposed to say to make this good. He wants Magnus to look inside his chest and see how his heart's beating too fast and his lungs don’t work and then -

And then he finds his way between Magnus’s legs and he never wants to leave.

And then Magnus is on top of him again and laying more kisses down his chest.

And then he’s breathing too shallow and he feels like he’s about to crack his neck when he throws his head back against the pillow.

Sex isn’t what he thought it would be. It’s not _sexy,_ really, it’s _awkward_. Alec’s never really been so close to someone he wasn’t trying to knock to the floor, and he decides he has far too many limbs for the adjusting to be anything close to smooth. Magnus laughs and Alec laughs and he wants to never leave this bed and never stop laughing.

And then Magnus is beside him and he hasn’t stopped smiling for a second. And Alec can see the rising black shadows around them and he can hear a growl and a whisper and a bang in the distance but he’s safer than he’s been in days.

Alec doesn’t deserve this, but he’s going to cling on by his fingernails to it regardless.

—

Alec’s body doesn’t get the memo about lie ins.

He thinks: _Get up. Pick out your clothes. Shower. Get dressed. Brush your teeth. Training._

But he doesn’t need to, not yet at least. There’s a slow rise and fall underneath his arms, there’s a comfortable warmth underneath him, there are legs tangled in his. He doesn’t want to get up, not yet. Not ever. Magnus’s bedsheets are a deep shade of purple and they’re soft and warm and nothing like Alec’s utilitarian, grey cotton blend ones. He wants to be here forever.

It takes him a minute to realise Magnus is awake.

“Why are you up so early?” He asks, and Magnus’s smile is back and Alec shifts his weight off Magnus’s chest slightly just in case he can feel how rapid Alec’s heart is beating.

“Could ask you the same thing,” Magnus replies simply. Alec wants to bury himself under the covers and drag Magnus down with him. He never wants to leave, he never wants to think about anything else ever again.

“What do you usually do in the morning.” He asks, propping himself up on his elbow so he can look at Magnus properly. He wonders if he can add to his list, maybe a little footnote or an alternate version he can use when he wakes up here. He wonders how often he’ll get to wake up like this, if Magnus would let him he’d do it every morning until he the day he died.

Magnus leans his head back a little and brings his hand up to push his hair away from his forehead and he’s smiling and, god, Alec hopes he says ‘ _nothing_ ’, he hopes he says they’re going to stay in bed forever.

“Depends on what I’m doing during the day. I usually get up early. Although, not usually this early.” Alec hadn’t checked the time yet, but it can’t be past 5am with how dim the sun still is. “You kick in your sleep, you know.”

Alec can feel his face getting warmer, “I’m sorry.” He says, but it’s still not enough that he wants to run. Still not enough that he can tear his eyes away from Magnus’s smile, which is turning into a soft, breathy laugh.

“It’s fine.” Magnus says in mock resignation, “I’ve shared my bed with far worse than you, Alexander.”

Alec wants to laugh, but he can’t. He wants to bury his head in the space between Magnus’s neck and shoulder, and he _can_ \- he’s allowed to do those sorts of things now - so he does. He never wants to move ever again. He wonders if there’s room on the list for this. _Get up. Cuddle with your boyfriend until the last possible second before you have to move. Pick out your clothes…_

Sometimes they’re terrifying, all these ridiculous thoughts he has about Magnus. He wants to go back in time and find himself as a kid and tell him that one day he can have all _this_ and that it’s okay to want it. He can’t do that, so instead, he says, “This is more than I could have ever imagined I’d get.” And Magnus is trailing his hands up and down Alec’s spine and Alec never, _ever_ wants to move again.

There’s a whisper and a growl but nothing is louder than Magnus’s breath in his ear.

The blood on his hands is invisible and he can pretend it’s not there at all.

**_Eight._ **

Nothing changes until it does. Clary shows up one day and suddenly Alec’s world is turned inside out. He meets Magnus and the floor starts to disappear beneath him sometimes. He puts his hand through someone’s chest and he’s still alive and he can’t think why. Nothing makes sense like it used to.

By the time he realises what he’s doing he’s already climbed up onto the ledge on Magnus’s rooftop. The street below him is loud but it’s not as loud as Clary or the growling. Nothing’s as loud as the _bang bang bang_ that’s right behind him now.

“You’re a murderer, Alec. Nothing more.” Clary says, and Alec can’t disagree. He’s been waiting for someone to say it for weeks now and he can feel a small pang of contentedness when Clary finally does.

He’d never really taken in how tall Magnus’s building was before now. Everything below him looks so small and the lights are so bright and noise is so loud. He’s not sure what to do, there’s so much noise. Clary is saying, “Why are you still here?” and Alec can’t think of a single damn reason, he doesn’t want to think of one either. He's looking around him, there’s so much light in the street and so much noise all over and he wants to crack his skull open - and maybe he can.

“All those times you told me I wasn’t a good Shadowhunter?” Clary spits at him and she’s so right. She’s never been so right in her life, Alec thinks.

“I know.” He says, his voice is coarse and he’s trying so hard to move the smoke out his mind and find what he’s been trying to say since the day he woke up outside Jocelyn’s room with a hand coated in thick, drying blood. “I know you wish I was dead instead of Jocelyn.”  Time can't go backwards, but he can even the score. He thinks about the street beneath him and the tarmac and how he’d fallen earlier in the week - how the grit got into his skin and stung out all his thoughts. He imagines that but all over his body. He imagines that, but never getting up. Never, ever getting up from the road ever again. Never having to open his eyes and -

“You let a demon possess you. You’re weak.” Clary is snarling almost now. Alec’s looking at her and looking back at the street and he’s not sure if he wants to jump or step of the ledge and let Clary maul him to death. “Nobody’s going to miss you.” And Alec thinks about Izzy and Jace and Max and his parents and how he’s been nothing but a burden on all of them, even when he was a kid. He’s been nothing but difficult and different and now he walks around with blood on his hands and they have to look at him. They have to talk to him and act like it’s okay when it’s not.

“Weak.” Clary is saying. “The guilt must be eating you alive.” Alec wishes it did, he wants something to chew the flesh off his bones and rip out his guts and stop him feeling anything at all but pain and terror. “Murderer.”

He leans back.

—

Nothing happens for a while. It’s dark and it’s quiet and then it’s not.

The noise returns, his eyes open and there’s not enough time to think because something is happening that’s bigger than him.

There’s a missing book. There’s a cat. There’s a lady in the cat. And then there’s not much else.

—

“You should stay here with Magnus.” Izzy says. She’s pulled him away from everyone else and they’re standing in the kitchen now. Alec _should_ say no. Alec _should_ go home with her and make sure everyone’s okay. But he _wants_ to stay here.

He nods and Izzy runs her hand down his arm and says “I love you.” And Alec says it back, even though the words make his throat feel tight.

Everyone leaves. Alec skirts around Magnus’s bookshelves and tries to pick up a few things off the floor before he’s interrupted by a hand on his back. He jumps, and Magnus looks hurt for a second before putting on a slight smile again.

Alec doesn’t want to have the conversation he knows they’re going to have.

Alec wants to crawl under Magnus’s soft, bright bedsheets and pretend that nothing outside of his bedroom exists. He doubts he’ll be that lucky.

Magnus is reaching out for Alec’s hand and confidently leading him to the couch before Alec has time to register he’s being moved at all. They sit down and Alec wants to run. Alec wants to run and keep running until he never has to see another person who knows what he did tonight ever again. But Magnus is beside him and he’s pressing soft kisses into the side of Alec’s head and Alec wants to disappear again because he knows _why_ this is happening. He wants to be okay. He wants to tell Magnus that he’s fine and he’s good and he’ll never do anything like this ever again but he can’t lie anymore. He doesn’t want to lie anymore. His head slips down and rests on Magnus’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” He says, and he knows it’s not what he’s supposed to say, but it feels like it needs to be said.

“I’m not angry with you. I need you to know that I’m not angry.” Magnus replies, and Alec’s heart is stuck in place and his lungs won’t move and he wants to speak but nothing is working the way it should. He wants to think but all his thoughts are disappearing out of his head before he can catch them. “I want you to know that you can speak to me. I know that you won’t believe me sometimes, that you won’t feel like you are allowed to, but the offer is always open. No matter what is happening between us, if you need to talk about this, we can. That’s what relationships are about - You speak to me, I speak to you. It’s a good deal.”

Alec doesn’t look up, doesn’t attempt for even a second to try meet Magnus’s eyes. He feels stupid, more than anything. Stupid and weak. Everyone else fought against the spell but Alec had climbed up on a ledge without a moment's hesitation. It was where he had wanted to be- he’d done what he’d been wishing he could do for weeks. Part of him resents Magnus for not letting him fall - but it’s not enough to make Alec wants to shuffle out of Magnus’s arms any time soon.

“Sometimes I don’t think the demon actually left me.” He says, because he doesn’t want to talk about the roof, he doesn’t want to think about falling and never hitting the ground. Magnus’s grip on him tightens slightly for a second. “And sometimes I see things that disappear, like they were never there to begin with. I can hear something growling all the time. I can -“ He’s trying to say more but everything gets caught in his head and won’t come out of his mouth. Magnus should know about the blood on his hands and the shadows at his feet and the sound of something getting closer and closer and _closer_ but -

Magnus’s hands are in Alec’s hair and all Alec wants is to forget.

Magnus is talking. He’s saying, “There’s more to this than you think. Your feet leave the ledge but your mind isn’t so easy to coax back.”, and he’s stroking Alec’s hair and he’s humming softly between words. Alec wants to stop talking, but he knows it’s not going to be easier to have this conversation tomorrow of the next day or the next. He wants to forget but he can’t, no one will let him. Clary still looks like her mother and sometimes he gets thoughts in his head about cutting her hair short just so it stops being so obvious. Jace still circles him like a shark and Izzy still talks too quiet and too cautiously. And Magnus -

Magnus is trying. And Alec doesn’t deserve the effort.

Magnus isn’t looking at Alec anymore. “I know what you’re going through.”

Alec sighs, bringing his hands up to rub his eyes slowly, “I wish you didn’t,” he says, “I wish things were easier.”

He wants to cry. He wants to throw his fist straight into Magnus’s coffee table and break it in half. He wants to run and never look back and keep running until he’s underwater and can’t breathe.

“You must be tired.” Alec says, “I’m sorry about your spellbook. We should have been more careful.” Magnus’s fingers stop dead in Alec’s hair and he feels so stupid again. He can never say the right thing anymore. Every inch of Alec is _wrong_.

“It’s not your fault.” Magnus says, and Alec wants to argue. Alec wants to point out that if Magnus had never met Alec then none of this would be happening. Alec wants to say sorry until his throat closes up.

“And I’m sorry about Max.” He straightens his back and lets Magnus’s hand fall behind his shoulder.

Magnus smiles and tips his head downwards slightly. “I’m used to it.” He says, and Alec just wants to bury his head against Magnus’s neck and _never stop apologising_.

He doesn’t move, just stares straight ahead of him and says, “You shouldn’t have to be.”

Magnus looked down at where his hands were playing with the buttons on his shirt and he was quiet for so long that Alec was sure he’d crossed a line. Then, Magnus is smiling, and he’s looking at Alec again and Alec feels like he’s being duped, but he plays along. There’s time for talking later, time - he hopes - for Magnus to trust him with all the thoughts he pushes down in moments like these.

“Want to watch the shopping channels and see all the ridiculous things mundanes buy?” Magnus asks, and he’s looking at Alec and _he’s smiling at Alec_ and Alec’s not sure how to move his mouth into a smile or open it to speak, so he just nods.

Time is a long, _long_ line. And it never moves backward, as much as Alec tries. Sometimes it curves or bends or loops. And sometimes, when he’s very lucky, it stops momentarily for Alec to lean into his boyfriend and feels his laugh reverberate down his spine.

—

Alec wakes when the sunlight is just beginning to creep through the window, dripping onto the floor and searing into his mind. Magnus’s curtains are thin and practically useless. Alec would buy him new ones, but he knows better than to make interior design suggestions at this point.

Tapping his phone screen on the bedside table he sighs. He needs to get back to the institute for Max’s rune ceremony soon.

 _Get up. P_ _ick out your clothes_ _(his suit is at home, he’ll change when he gets there.) Shower. Get dressed. Brush your teeth (There’s a dark green toothbrush sitting in a cup by Magnus’s bathroom sink that Alec feels stupidly happy about)._ _Training_ _(Max’s ceremony.)_

It’s easy. It’s going to be _so easy_.

An emergency is when you’re being rescued, he thinks. An emergency is when your boyfriends pulls you over the edge of his apartment building with magic and you wake up with your family surrounding you and you can’t speak. An emergency is being rescued.

And now he has been. _Emergency over._

He slides the covers off and turns to put his feet on the ground.

An emergency is being rescued. It’s being saved and being pulled off a ledge. An emergency is _not_ forgetting how his feet work and it’s _not_ the noises and the blood and it’s _not_ the feeling in his guts like he’s being cut open from the inside. It _can’t_ be those things, or else his whole life has become one big emergency, and that can’t happen. He can’t think about that.

He stands. One foot moves, then the other.

It’s not an emergency anymore. It’s just _life_. And it keeps going, no matter how much he tries to stop it.

Magnus’s shower is too big and it makes him feel even smaller than he already does. He’s not sure what he can touch and he’s not sure why his hands are numb but it’s not the time for questions.

Magnus is awake by the time Alec is out of the bathroom and he’s smiling at Alec as if Alec deserves it. It’s not an emergency.

Magnus says good morning and asks how he’s feeling and Alec wants to lie but he doesn’t. He says that he’ll be fine, because he will. He has to be, so he will be. It’s not a lie.

It’s _not_ an emergency, not anymore. He can still feel the chill of the night air all around him and he can hear the snarl in Clary’s voice but it’s not an emergency because he’s been rescued now.

“I have to go.” He says, but he doesn’t want to.

“Okay. Want me to make you a portal to the institute?” Magnus offers, but Alec shakes his head. Walking might do him some good. And he’s fine now, or he will be, he _has_ to be.

Magnus kisses him goodbye and Alec never wants to leave, not for a single second, but it’s not the time to want things. He has to leave.

It’s not an emergency because Magnus smiles and waves him out the door and Alec smiles back because feels like he’s allowed to.

It’s not an emergency anymore because he can walk through the street without thinking about it, he can hear a sound in the distance but it’s not too loud. His eyes hurt, but it’s okay. He’s not running, there’s nothing to run from.

It’s not an emergency, even if his hands fall to his sides and his breath gets short when he sees the institute.

 

An emergency is when you’re alone and then you’re not because someone’s pulling you back in. Not when your sister meets you at the door and hugs you so tight you can’t pull in a breath and not when your brother smiles at you and joins in as well. It’s not a look on your mother's face or a feeling deep inside you that won’t come out.

An emergency is when you are being rescued. It’s not the before, not the after. That part, Alec thinks, is just called _life_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the kind comments and responses to my fics - and any other content I have posted in relation to this fandom! I'm orphaning all my fics here so these are the titles of other Shadowhunters fics I have posted:   
> A Guest  
> Errands  
> Janus
> 
> (This was the first fic I had written and posted in years, was written in a hypomanic sleep-deprived 3 day hype and I am still surprised anyone read it. I just wanted to leave an extra comment on this one because I don't think it's very good or thought out or makes much sense, and the ending feels shitty and awful - but it was cathartic to write something that was solely for me and my own ... enjoyment? I really didn't expect many people to read it seeing as it is heavy and weird, but I am thankful people took the time to do so even though it's needlessly long! I know it's not like wildly popular or anything, and that it's just a Shadowhunters fanfic haha, but it felt nice to write something that is so specifically about psychosis that got such a positive response! I have always felt worried about exploring that part of my life in anything I do creatively and sharing that publically so I'm glad some people liked this, and gave it a chance.)


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